


From the Mixed-up File of Sgt James D Hathaway

by dogpoet



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Blue - Freeform, Colours, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 01:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/pseuds/dogpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hathaway decides to resign from the force, but first he must tell Lewis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Mixed-up File of Sgt James D Hathaway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [from](https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/gifts).



> I challenged [From](http://archiveofourown.org/users/from) to write a fic about the colour blue. [From](http://archiveofourown.org/users/from) refused to do it unless I did it. That is the spirit of co-operation that keeps fandom going.
> 
> Beta by [ariadnes_string](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes_string).

His file is blue. He knows this because he has seen Innocent holding it. He has seen her adding things to it: reprimands, commendations, pay rise notices, and notes on his personal involvement in certain cases. And, now, she will have something else to add: his letter of resignation.

James considered emailing it, but this sheet of A4 is more final, more physical. It will save Innocent from printing his email to add to the file. Sitting at his desk in his flat, James folds the paper in thirds and slips it into an envelope. He licks the envelope flap like he’s performing a ritual.

It will go into his blue file, and then the file will be shut forever.

A knock on the door. It’s Lewis, James knows. James has yet to inform him. He wants to say: _If I go, will you?_

_those blue remembered hills_

Lewis understands so much about him. It’s painful even to think about parting ways with him. Will there still be pints and curries? James would like there to be more. He answers the door, and Lewis stands before him in a navy blue jumper and jeans. 

Lewis tilts his head towards the road. “Ready?”

James takes a breath, looking at the floor, at his socked feet.

“I’ll wait,” Lewis says, coming in and collapsing on the sofa as though it’s his own.

*

On maps, blue is the colour of rivers and motorways. The colour of travel. The colour of moving on. But it is also the colour of lakes, the colour of staying in one place. Contradictory.

James brings them in, setting a pint of brown ale in front of Lewis, who gazes up at him with kind eyes.

“What’s on your mind, then?”

James looks to his pint for answers. He looks to the river, which lies just beyond their table, running greenish-brown, not blue. “Do I have to have something on my mind? Can’t we just have a pint?”

Lewis makes a face that says: _I know you better than that._

James loves Lewis’s silences.

The stations of his life. Blue is the colour of religion, of the Virgin. Purity, hope, heavenly grace. In Judaism, blue is divinity. It is the halfway point between day and night. It is woven into garments. In Hinduism, it is the colour of some of the gods. And it is James’s colour, the colour of his search for answers. His need for forgiveness and redemption and justice. It is his middle name, Daniel, _God is my judge._

Blue is the colour of police uniforms. The colour of law, which has been his station for almost a decade now, seven of those years with Lewis. Seven years. It seems a good time to stop.

“I’ve decided to resign,” James says, realising his hands are shaking. He’s afraid to look up, to see Lewis’s expression. He can hear Lewis take a breath, but no words come.

Finally, Lewis says, “I can’t say I’m surprised. I —”

James meets Lewis’s eyes, aware of how he must look, his need, his yearning. He wants, more than anything, to touch Lewis, to feel the solidity of his hands, his body.

It is Lewis’s turn to seek answers in his beer. “I can’t exactly go on without you, can I?”

“Sir?”

“Give over. You know what I mean.”

They sit in silence.

James doesn’t know, not really. How will they go on? There are things he wants but can never say.

 _Are you?_ , he remembers Lewis asking him.

Gay? No. He’s confused. He’s never touched a man, not in that way. He’s never kissed a man. But he wants to kiss Lewis. He wants to say: _I’m blue._ Blue is the unknown, the depths of the ocean, the far reaches of the sky. It’s confusion. It’s clarity. It’s the way he feels, a kind of pure desire, something that can’t be named or defined.

Blue is the colour of Lewis’s eyes. Kindness. Fidelity. Truth. Huge words that are still too small to describe him. He takes up all of James’s mind, and parts of his body.

He once thought it was a sin. 

_those blue remembered hills_

“I know you wouldn’t have told me if you weren’t certain,” Lewis says, looking at the river, his frown deep. “We’ll have to tell Innocent.” His sudden grin is startling. “Can’t wait to see the look on her face! ‘Both of you!?’”

James huffs, laughing, one part relieved, one part worried about the future. 

After a moment, Lewis says, “I know what I’ll be doing, but what about you?” 

Lewis always could name James’s thoughts, could sometimes know them before he thought them. He has no idea what he’ll do. He only knows he can’t keep doing what he’s doing.

“That remains to be seen. And what will you be doing?” He can feel his heart thudding, wanting, hoping.

Lewis swallows a good portion of what’s left in his glass. “I’ll be driving up to Manchester a fair bit, I imagine.” He thinks. “And looking after you.”

“Me?”

“Of course. I know what you get up to when you’re left to your own devices.”

Empty bottle of scotch on the coffee table. Lewis confessed, once, to drinking a bottle of brandy a day for a year after Val died. Therefore it’s not a criticism, only an observation. James thinks too much when he’s on his own. Blue. The colour of sadness. It takes all of James’s willpower not to reach for Lewis’s hand. _Lover to lover, no kiss, no touch, but forever and ever this._ That’s what they feel like, at least from his side. 

“I always welcome your company,” James says.

Lewis smiles. “Never drink alone.” He touches his glass to James’s glass.

*

“Sir?” James says, later, when they’re standing beside his kitchen worktop, opening containers of curry.

Lewis makes a face. (James loves to make him make faces.) “Robbie.”

It’s a continuation. An evolution. An arrow pointing to a future. The name means _bright fame_ , Lewis told him. James says it, testing, letting it roll off his tongue. “Robbie. Robbie. Robbie.” The name is joy. And James has forgotten what it was he wanted to say besides the name.

Lewis — Robbie — is smiling. He’s spooning chicken tikka onto a plate. His eyes are the colour of evening sky, joining day and night. They’re the colour of deep ocean, the colour of quiet waves and swells. The colour of the next station in James’s life. _The Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above._ In some languages, the word for blue and the word for green are the same. Two things. One name. Things that seem different aren’t so very.

“Robbie,” James says again, touching Robbie’s jumper, his hip.

Robbie puts down the spoon and the takeaway container. James’s thoughts, his wants, must show on his face. 

“What —?” Robbie says, surprised. Then, his expression softening: “It’s all right. Come here.” His arms wrap around James.

Chin on Robbie’s shoulder, he can gaze down the expanse of navy blue jumper. He can mould his body to Robbie’s solid belly, his chest. Those arms feel comforting, enfolding. For now, this. This is all he wants. He might later ask to kiss. He thinks he knows the answer. _If you go, I go._ They go together, in whatever way. 

He wonders if Innocent will copy their letters, so she can place one of each in their files. James is part of Robbie’s history, and Robbie is part of his. The letters will sit there together, in the dry darkness, until someone, years from now, opens the file and finds them.

**Author's Note:**

> The poems quoted are “The Land of Lost Content” (A Shropshire Lad, XL) by A.E. Housman, “At Baia” by H.D., and “Answer to a Child’s Question” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.


End file.
